Amortization Calculator
The Amortization Calculator shows the complete month-by-month and yearly breakdown of a fixed-rate loan — how each payment splits between principal and interest and how your balance shrinks over time. Ideal for mortgages, auto loans, and personal loans. The monthly payment amount itself never changes across the loan — what shifts month to month is only the split between interest and principal, since interest is recalculated fresh each period on whatever balance remains. On the final scheduled payment, the calculator sets the principal portion equal to the exact remaining balance rather than the formula's rounded output, so the loan clears to precisely $0.00 instead of leaving a few cents outstanding or overpaid. Because the split is driven purely by the remaining balance and the rate, two loans with an identical rate and term amortize in identical percentage shape regardless of loan size — only the dollar amounts scale.
Monthly payment
$1,580
Total interest
$318,861
Total paid
$568,861
Amortization schedule
| Year | Principal | Interest | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $2,794 | $16,168 | $247,206 |
| 2 | $2,981 | $15,981 | $244,224 |
| 3 | $3,181 | $15,781 | $241,043 |
| 4 | $3,394 | $15,568 | $237,649 |
| 5 | $3,621 | $15,341 | $234,027 |
| 6 | $3,864 | $15,098 | $230,163 |
| 7 | $4,123 | $14,839 | $226,041 |
| 8 | $4,399 | $14,563 | $221,642 |
| 9 | $4,694 | $14,269 | $216,948 |
| 10 | $5,008 | $13,954 | $211,940 |
| 11 | $5,343 | $13,619 | $206,597 |
| 12 | $5,701 | $13,261 | $200,896 |
| 13 | $6,083 | $12,879 | $194,813 |
| 14 | $6,490 | $12,472 | $188,323 |
| 15 | $6,925 | $12,037 | $181,398 |
| 16 | $7,389 | $11,573 | $174,009 |
| 17 | $7,884 | $11,078 | $166,126 |
| 18 | $8,412 | $10,551 | $157,714 |
| 19 | $8,975 | $9,987 | $148,739 |
| 20 | $9,576 | $9,386 | $139,163 |
| 21 | $10,217 | $8,745 | $128,946 |
| 22 | $10,902 | $8,061 | $118,044 |
| 23 | $11,632 | $7,330 | $106,413 |
| 24 | $12,411 | $6,551 | $94,002 |
| 25 | $13,242 | $5,720 | $80,760 |
| 26 | $14,129 | $4,833 | $66,632 |
| 27 | $15,075 | $3,887 | $51,557 |
| 28 | $16,084 | $2,878 | $35,473 |
| 29 | $17,162 | $1,800 | $18,311 |
| 30 | $18,311 | $651 | $0 |
Shows how each payment splits between principal and interest and how your balance falls over time. Assumes a fixed rate and equal monthly payments. Estimates for planning only.
How This Tool Works
Enter the loan amount, interest rate, and term. The tool shows your monthly payment, total interest, and total cost, plus a full schedule you can view by year or drill into month by month.
Formula & Method
Each month, interest = remaining balance × (annual rate ÷ 12), and principal = fixed payment − interest. The balance drops by the principal portion each month, so early payments are mostly interest and later ones are mostly principal.
Example Calculation
A $250,000 loan at 6.5% over 30 years (360 months) has a fixed payment of $1,580.17/month. Month 1: interest = $250,000 × (6.5% ÷ 12) = $250,000 × 0.00541667 = $1,354.17; principal = $1,580.17 − $1,354.17 = $226.00; new balance = $250,000 − $226.00 = $249,774.00. Carrying this same interest-then-principal split forward for all 12 months of year one, total interest paid comes to about $16,167.73 and total principal paid comes to about $2,794.31 (together equal to 12 × $1,580.17 = $18,962.04), leaving a balance of about $247,205.69 at the end of year one — meaning after a full year of payments, barely 1.1% of the original loan has actually been paid down.
About the Amortization Calculator
When you borrow money on a fixed-rate installment loan, the payment looks simple: the same amount leaves your account every month until the loan is gone. What the monthly figure hides is how the lender divides it. Part of each payment covers the interest that has built up on the balance you still owe, and only the remainder reduces the debt. An amortization schedule lays that division out line by line, so you can see exactly how much of every payment is cost and how much is progress.
This calculator takes three inputs, the loan amount, the annual interest rate, and the term in years, and produces the monthly payment, the total interest over the life of the loan, and the total amount repaid. Below those summary tiles sits the full schedule, which you can view year by year or month by month, with columns for principal, interest, and remaining balance. It works for mortgages, auto loans, personal loans, and student loans, anywhere the rate is fixed and payments are equal.
Seeing the schedule changes how people make decisions. You can see why a refinance late in a 30-year mortgage saves less than one in the first few years, why an extra payment early on goes further than one made near the end, and how much a shorter term really saves. It is also a handy check on a lender's disclosure or loan estimate: if the payment or total interest on your paperwork is far from what this tool produces, ask for an explanation.
When to Use It
Comparing two mortgage offers
A buyer receives a 30-year and a 15-year quote from lenders. By running the same loan amount through the tool with each rate and term, they compare the monthly payments and the total interest, and see which balance would remain after 10 years, to decide whether the higher payment of the shorter loan is worth it.
Understanding a car loan before signing
Someone at a dealership is offered a 60-month loan. They enter the loan amount and rate, review the first year's interest and the balance after 12 months, and see how quickly they would owe less than the car is worth, which informs whether to negotiate the rate or choose a shorter term.
Deciding whether to refinance
A homeowner nine years into a 30-year loan wonders whether refinancing makes sense. The schedule shows their current balance and how much interest they still face. Comparing that with a new loan's total interest helps them see if lower payments are worth restarting a long term.
Planning for extra payments or a payoff date
A borrower wants to be debt-free sooner. They use the monthly view to see how much principal a regular payment retires in each month and judge how an extra amount in the early years would cut the balance, since reduced principal means less interest in every later month.
How to Use It, Step by Step
- Enter the Loan amount as the original principal you are borrowing, or the current remaining balance if you want to see the rest of an existing loan. The default is $250,000, so replace it with your own figure.
- Type the Interest rate as the annual percentage rate your lender quoted, without the percent sign. The tool divides it by 12 to get the monthly rate, and it accepts decimals such as 6.25.
- Fill in the Term (years) as a whole number of years. The field takes years only, so a 60-month car loan is entered as 5, and a loan with a partial year will need to be rounded.
- Look at the three summary tiles: Monthly payment, Total interest, and Total paid. Compare the payment with your budget, and compare the interest with the amount you are borrowing to see the real cost of the loan.
- Scroll the Amortization schedule in its default Yearly view to see, for each year, the principal repaid, the interest paid, and the balance still owed at the end of that year.
- Switch to the Monthly view when you want the detail behind any year. Each row shows that payment's principal and interest and the balance after it, so you can find the month when you pass a milestone such as reaching half the original balance.
- Change one input at a time, such as the term or the rate, and watch how the payment, total interest, and balance column respond. Keep notes of each scenario you test so you can compare them side by side.
- Compare the figures with your loan documents. Lenders might round a payment to the cent or add escrow, fees, and insurance, so small differences are normal, but large ones are worth a question.
Understanding Your Results
The monthly payment is the fixed amount needed to pay off the loan over the full term at the quoted rate. It covers principal and interest only, so a mortgage payment will also include property tax and insurance, and a car loan may include fees that are not shown here. Total paid is that payment times the number of months, and total interest is the amount of that total that goes to the lender rather than reducing the principal.
In the schedule, the balance column is the most telling. On a long loan the balance falls slowly at first because most of each early payment is interest, and then accelerates later as the interest portion shrinks. The yearly view shows the pattern at a glance: principal repaid grows each year while interest paid falls. The point in the monthly view where the principal column first becomes larger than the interest column marks the turning point in the loan.
Use these figures to judge the loan's real cost. A useful check is to divide total interest by the amount borrowed to see how many dollars of interest you pay per dollar borrowed. Then test alternatives, such as a shorter term or a lower rate, and look at how the total interest changes. The tool displays whole dollars, so expect your lender's statement to differ by a few cents on any given month.
More Worked Examples
30-year mortgage on $320,000 at 6.25 percent
Scenario: Loan amount $320,000, interest rate 6.25, term 30 years, viewed yearly and then monthly.
The tool shows a monthly payment of $1,970, total interest of $389,306, and total paid of $709,306. In month one, interest is about $1,667 and principal about $304, leaving a balance near $319,696. After year one, you have repaid $3,750 of principal against $19,894 of interest, and the balance is $316,250. Principal first exceeds interest in month 228, around the 19-year mark. The balance is $269,561 after year 10 and $229,793 after year 15.
Five-year car loan on $28,000 at 7.9 percent
Scenario: Loan amount $28,000, interest rate 7.9, term 5 years.
The monthly payment is $566, total interest is $5,984, and total paid is $33,984. Because the term is short, principal exceeds interest from the first payment: about $382 goes to principal and $184 to interest in month one, with a balance near $27,618. Year one repays $4,755 of principal and $2,042 of interest, leaving $23,245. Year two ends at $18,101. By the final year, only about $282 of interest remains, and the last payment includes roughly $4 of interest.
Same $180,000 loan at 6 percent over 15 and 30 years
Scenario: Run $180,000 at a 6 percent rate twice, once with a term of 30 years and once with 15 years.
At 30 years, the payment is $1,079, total interest is $208,509, and the balance after year 10 is $150,634. At 15 years, the payment is $1,519, total interest is $93,410, and the balance after year 10 is $78,568. The shorter loan costs about $440 more each month but saves roughly $115,100 of interest. Principal overtakes interest in month 43 on the 15-year loan, versus month 223 on the 30-year loan.
Tips for Better Results
- Run the schedule for the remaining balance and remaining years of an existing loan, not just a new one, if you are deciding about a refinance or an extra payment. Knowing the actual interest still ahead of you gives a fairer comparison.
- Look at the first-year interest figure, not just the payment. For a long loan, the portion of year one that goes to interest shows how slowly the early balance falls, which is a useful reality check.
- When comparing a shorter and a longer term, compare the total interest and the balance at the same year, such as year 10. The monthly payment alone hides how much faster the balance is falling on the shorter loan.
- If you plan to move or sell in a few years, use the balance column to estimate what you will owe at that point. With a long mortgage, you may have paid down far less than you expect in the first five years.
- To estimate the effect of an extra payment, find the principal portion for the month in the monthly view. Paying that amount early removes the interest that would have accrued on it in every later month.
- Use the exact rate from your loan estimate and not a rounded number. A difference of 0.125 percentage points looks small but changes the payment and compounds over hundreds of payments.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Entering the term in months. The field expects years, so a 60-month loan entered as 60 would produce a 60-year schedule. Convert months to years before typing.
- Assuming the payment shown is the whole monthly bill on a mortgage. This tool covers principal and interest only, so property tax, homeowners insurance, and any mortgage insurance must be added separately.
- Using a rate that includes extra fees or the wrong type of rate. Enter the interest rate, not the APR, if you want the schedule to match the lender's payment, because APR folds in fees that do not change the payment.
- Expecting the schedule to match a statement to the penny. The tool uses an unrounded payment, while a lender rounds to cents, so tiny differences build up across the schedule.
- Forgetting that the tool assumes a fixed rate. An adjustable-rate loan or one with an introductory period will change payments when the rate resets, so this schedule will not predict those later months.
Assumptions and Limits
- The calculator assumes a fixed interest rate, equal monthly payments, and payments made on schedule. It does not model adjustable rates, interest-only periods, balloon payments, skipped payments, or variable-rate student loans.
- Interest is calculated monthly as the balance times one twelfth of the annual rate. Some loans use daily interest, which can change the numbers slightly, particularly if payments arrive earlier or later than the due date.
- There is no field for extra payments, fees, taxes, or insurance, and the term must be a whole number of years. Results are shown in whole dollars, and the final payment is adjusted so the balance reaches exactly zero.
- For decisions such as refinancing or choosing between loan types, confirm the figures with your lender's official disclosure and consider speaking with a licensed loan officer or a fee-only financial adviser.
Key Terms
- Amortization
- The process of paying off a debt through regular scheduled payments that cover both interest and principal, so the balance reaches zero at the end of the term.
- Principal
- The portion of the money you borrowed that remains unpaid. Each payment's principal portion reduces the balance on which future interest is charged.
- Interest
- The cost of borrowing, charged on the remaining balance. In this tool it is the balance times the annual rate divided by 12 for each month.
- Remaining balance
- How much you still owe after a given payment. It equals the original loan amount minus all principal repaid so far.
- Loan term
- The length of time over which the loan is scheduled to be repaid, expressed in this tool as a whole number of years.
- Fixed-rate loan
- A loan whose interest rate stays the same for the whole term, which keeps the required monthly principal and interest payment constant.
Related guides
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is so much of my early payment interest?+
Interest is charged on the outstanding balance, which is highest at the start. As the balance falls, the interest portion of each payment shrinks and more goes toward principal.
Can I see every month, not just years?+
Yes. Switch the schedule to the Monthly view to see the principal, interest, and balance for each individual payment.
Does this include taxes and insurance?+
No — it shows the loan’s principal and interest only. For a full mortgage payment with taxes and insurance, use our Mortgage Calculator.
Does the payment amount change over the life of the loan?+
No — for a fixed-rate loan, the payment amount itself stays exactly the same every month. What changes is the mix: more of each payment goes to interest early on and more goes to principal later, as the outstanding balance shrinks.
Why does the last payment in the schedule look slightly different from the others?+
The calculator sets the final payment's principal portion equal to whatever balance is left, rather than the formula's rounded output, so the loan pays off to exactly $0.00 instead of leaving a few cents over or under due to rounding accumulated in earlier months.
How do extra payments change an amortization schedule?+
An extra payment applied to principal lowers the balance right away, so every later month's interest is calculated on a smaller number. That shortens the loan and cuts the total interest, even though the required payment stays the same. This calculator shows the standard schedule without extras, so use it to see the baseline, and ask your lender to confirm extra amounts are applied to principal.
Why does a longer loan cost so much more in total interest?+
Interest is charged on the balance each month, and a longer term keeps a larger balance outstanding for more months. A lower monthly payment is the trade-off, but you are effectively borrowing the money for much longer. Running the same amount and rate at two terms in this tool, and comparing the total interest tiles, shows the gap clearly.
Does an amortization schedule work for credit cards?+
Not really. Credit cards have variable balances, variable rates, and minimum payments that change with the balance, so there is no fixed schedule. This tool is meant for loans with a set amount, rate, and term. For a card, you can approximate a payoff by treating your current balance as a loan and your planned fixed payment as the target, but you would need a payoff calculator.
What is the difference between the interest rate and the APR?+
The interest rate determines the interest portion of your payment. The annual percentage rate also folds in certain fees and costs, so it is usually a bit higher and is mainly useful for comparing offers. To reproduce a lender's monthly payment, use the stated interest rate in this calculator, and use the APR only to compare the overall cost of different loans.
Can I use this for an interest-only or balloon loan?+
No. The tool assumes equal payments that fully repay the loan by the end of the term. An interest-only loan pays no principal during the interest-only period, and a balloon loan leaves a large unpaid balance at the end. The payments, the schedule, and the total cost for those loans work differently, so ask your lender for a custom schedule.
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